Building 429 singer Jason Roy talks Winter Jam and new music
Building 429 are among the many artists on Winter Jam this year that are making a return to the tour. Playing the tour in 2012, they\’ve come back in 2015 bigger and stronger than ever.
“It’s obviously a season of incredible growth and we’re really excited about what God is doing. “ says Building 429 singer Jason Roy. “I don’t think anybody sits around going “look what we’ve pulled off.” I think it’s really cool, with Winter Jam being such a huge part of our success.
“Let’s be honest, that’s where we launched the song “Where I Belong” and it kind of was the song that flipped our world upside down. Since then we’ve been out doing our own headlining tours, which has been a blast. It’s a crazy thing to go out and be carrying 18-wheelers and buses all over the place, and doing all of these really cool shows.
“But we’re really, really excited about Winter Jam because we get to come back home to our friends and to our family, and we know pretty much everybody by name that’s gonna be on the tour and I’m not having to sing an hour and a half every night,” continues Roy. “So it’s new, going out there and blow up 20 minutes and rest.”
With a tour as big as Winter Jam, everything is carefully and meticulously planned and timed. The tour operates on a very strict schedule and it\’s also one of the most elaborate stage shows and set-ups in all of music each year. Each band on the bill has a different mission and purpose and it can take a long time to prepare for the tour.
“You have to figure out what your mantra is gonna be, and for us our mantra is to draw people in close,” explains Roy. “We say this a lot and it may be different than everybody else but we play to the people in the very back seat and the very highest seat farthest away from the stage- those are the people we want to play the concert to because if we can play it to them and we can get them dancing in their seat and singing along then we’re highly confident about the people in front of us.”
So that\’s what you have to do, says Roy. You have all sorts of different elements and if you walk in there and don\’t have a program set, your song can just look “flash and trash,” so they say.
As Roy mentioned, Building 429\’s last record- 2013\’s We Won\’t Be Shaken saw the massive hit single, “Where I Belong” and launched the band onto numerous headline tours. That album is also a big factor into what makes the band a big draw on this year\’s Winter Jam tour. But when can fans expect a new album? Soon, if you ask Roy.
“I’m writing it right now and I’ll be finishing up all the writing while we’re on Winter Jam and we’ll be recording right after. We are gonna play one new song on the tour,” says Roy. “We’re really looking forward to it because this is gonna be kind of the coming out party for our new record. We’re gonna kind of preemptively launch it and get it up and running.
And again, people are going to be able to buy this new song, we’re gonna do an extended edition of We Won’t Be Shaken but it’s also gonna carry over to the new record but it’s a new flavor, a new sound,” continues Roy. “And I think it’s gonna be something that’s gonna be a lot of fun.”
With this year featuring a lot of returning bands- and a lot of them having toured together on the 2012 inception of the tour, it certainly has a family reunion vibe this year, says Roy.
“What’s cool about it is that it’s like a reunion tour of people who are still highly relevant. It’s not like they’ve pulled people that are trying to make one last run at it,” says Roy. “Everybody on this tour has hit songs out, big records out. What I’m [always] interested in and looking forward to is the first night, seeing…the last time we did Winter Jam on the first night managers are freaking out, lighting guys trying to get it right and so it actually is hilarious.
“It’s really funny. I don’t feel that pressure and I doubt very seriously that there’s anyone who does feel that. I think it’s just gonna be a big old family hang out,” says Roy.
Stream the interview in its entirety below: